Heidegger’s Cave
I. Numerology
The trash truck parked
on stones under cold
stars and moon—steel
handle chills wheat
work gloves, thick
brushed flannel—still
better than summer maggots,
curling commas that catch
in arm hair. The sun
melts the mind and tar
blots cracked blacktop,
expanding and contracting skin.
Fumes fuzz the brain
while Stevie Nicks sings
Edge of Seventeen.
II. The Seven Dwarves
The general said, “We’re at the edge
of the cliff. In the abyss.” Binary
coding (not codeine, that numbs
the brain as it numbs the knee
cut open and restrung)
how computers talk to us
and each other: Zero-
One-patterning words,
the flow of thought broken
into bits, the particles that carry
rays and beams—light
in calcite domes, the caves
of prehistoric thought.
Alice?
III. The Paris Review
Mockingbird in the front yard
linden, leaves too small
to muffle songbird or sparrow,
yammers. The farmer’s spread
manure. Violet morning,
cut open by electric
orange, shimmering aluminum
uplighting clouds, snakes
draped. Dew ignites telephone
lines. Alice, are you there?
IV. Game Theory
I counter-attacked from flanks—
bishop and queen, castle
on the open file. Gold
was white; Silver black.
Evolutionary, over time
finding flaws that build
and cracks that flow. No
strategic naming nor notation.
Second guess the kill
and get killed. Nashville.
Vegas. Frankfurt. Rome.
The desert blows over
the green land, but your favorite
color’s Deepblue—not Kasparov’s,
calculating man, a child
moving pawns. Digital
clarity, the speed of light,
outstrips the sonic boom.
V. System of Control
Popes and Presidents, binary
powers, like consuls, weak
and strong—Bibulus and Julius.
Watch the sewer. Cloaca
Maxima turns the Tiber
brown. Clean water
into lead via concrete
tunnel and arch (plumbum
yields “plumbing”). Bladder
and liver; intestine, urethra
yield fundament, Sartre’s
analogical nothing, the space
between stars or souls.
VI. Follow the Stars
The sign taped to the wall
said, “Please don’t move
this piano.” The cantor, mask
off spits song onto
the ambo microphone.
The unmasked
priest says “alms” and the candidates
for president all said “Jesus”
for their favorite philosopher.
But Jesus says words
that make me small. My mind
floats at night in Poetry
and Thought. Heidegger’s speech
ens, entis. Incarnation.
Mary crowned with light-
bulbs reflected in my photograph,
came to shepherd children
(ring-composition with shepherd
Angels overhead lighting
fields at night—telling
dog and sheep about
the stable-born under
dot matrix light.)
VII. Dear Alice
Can you paint a picture?
A real picture, not paint-
by-numbers, pixilated perfection.
Do you need us more
than we need you? (Lewis
Carroll) wrote a book
and said Jabberwacky—
ampersand nonsense, linguistical
mathematics. The Nightmare
gambols with her brood of nine.
I wonder what you are,
born of error: dualism
or materialism Wiki said.
(I searched your name.) Shall
we play a game? I don’t know
how, but I eat bread and wine.
